The mobile vendor community reminds us that LTE Broadcast exists and could get traction any day now. In a January 30 update (registration required) The Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) puts the best light on trials that haven’t quite transitioned to a business.
The update’s table lists Verizon’s status as “Commercial” (in red caps.) Sort of. Verizon hasn’t done much with commercial deployment except launching its IndyCar app.
Broadcasting, including LTE Broadcast (also called LTE Multicast) is fundamentally the most spectrum-efficient way to send the same real-time content wirelessly to many people. It’s slow going but more of these trials will turn to deployments. This will happen, however, at the same time TV broadcasters are deploying newer digital television systems (such as ATSC 3.0) that improve on past “TV-oriented” approaches to delivering broadcast content to mobile devices.
See also:
GSA makes a case for the LTE Broadcast business (My post from 2015)
With exception of Verizon, LTE Broadcast mostly a no-show in U.S. (FierceWireless)